Joe Slater’s Post

This is my last week at Creative HQ. It has been a wild ride transitioning from business ownership to employment but one that has taught me a bunch about myself, introduced me to many inspiring entrepreneurs and others in the startup world. I'm most proud of: ° raising the ambition of our accelerator programmes to being truly world class and supporting >60 high potential startups through those programmes. ° helping bring Startup Aotearoa to life and seeing it coach over 1000 founders from across Aotearoa per year in only 18 months. ° making strong connections with my colleagues, collaborators and founders. After coaching stacks of startups my main advice always comes back to: * Trust the process * Flip fear into excitement * Look after yourself * Do it your way * Make it undeniable The startup community in Aotearoa is packed with great founders, investors and supporters. We all need to double down on our unique skillsets, approaches and celebrate how we do things here, and we need to be realistic about our size, stage and potential and not just try to be more like other places. I'm straight into a new role next week and will update on that soon. Huge thanks to the people at Creative HQ that supported my vision and truly care about the mahi and to the programme partners and startup community that tirelessly supports founders. And most of all to the founders who I've worked closely and not so closely with, it's the ones crazy enough to give things a go that make real change. Keep going. Mā tātou katoa tēnei mahi - this work is for all of us.